A Big Increase in French Commercial Motors
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RITISH, American and German visitors to France are often inclined to regard that country as lagging far behind the times in the development and use of industrial vehicles. Whilst this view may be correct in certain respects, particularly in the case of coaches and coach services, the development in other directions during the past 10 years has been prodigious.
. The light, fast delivery van has found a large market throughout France and concerns specializing in this type of vehicle have done good business.
In, .1920, the first year in which industrial vehicles Were placed in a separate category. by the French revenue authorities, there were only 79,076 commercial vehicles in the whole country. Irk December 31st, 1930, the total had grown to 411,495. During the same period the number of petrol or oil-driven railcars in operation has risen from 24 to 243. The Paris public-transport concern, known as the T.C.P.P., has increased its bus fleet from 800 in 1920 to 1,730 vehicles last year.
So far as coaches are concerned, the only real development has been in catering for tourists and in the excursion business generally, extremely few regular town-to-town services being as yet in existence. The excursion and tourist business, as exploited by the great rail
way companies, has, however, seen a remarkable expansion.
During 1930 the coaches run by the seven French railway concerns carried between them 1,044,600 passengers • and covered 4,779,000 vehicle-kiloms. The total receipts obtained by the seven concerns amounted to 17,080,000 francs.
These results were obtained with a total of 692 vehicles, 225 of which were run by the P.L.M., the rest being distributed as follows :—Western State Railway, 115; Paris-Orleans, 120; Midi, 95; Nord, 94; Eastern State Railway, 26; Alsace-Lorraine Railway, 17. The P.L.M. obtained 13,307,000 francs out of the total receipts mentioned above.